School’s first students get back together for night of memories 60 years on
They were the Class of 1964, history makers in their own way even if that was lost on them at the time; the first students through the front door of Oughterard’s brand new secondary school, then to one side of the narrow bridge on the road to Connemara.
There were 39 of them who walked through the doors of the newly-minted St Paul’s Secondary School that September morning, marking the arrival of second-level education in the village – and 29 of them were back together last week to mark six decades since that journey began.
The school itself is now at a different location, alongside the primary school in Carrowmanagh, to the right over that same narrow bridge – but its ethos remains the same.
And the years rolled away when the first class through the school gates got back together last week to reminisce on those days.
Gerry D’Arcy remembers that first morning like it was yesterday.
“I remember going in and up those big stairs to the two rooms at the top. There were just two teachers at the start – Fr Ned Kelly and the Principal, Sr Finian from Inis Meáin,” he says.
Fr Ned was remembered along with the eight deceased students at a special Mass last week, and Sr Finian is alive and well, looking forward to her 93rd birthday next April, at the Mercy Convent in Newtownsmyth in Galway City.
Eight of that First Year class are gone but not forgotten – and their families carried candles to the altar in their memory last week.
John Gill, John Martin Joyce, Michael Gibbons, Margaret Clancy, Frank Butler, JJ McCarthy, Helena Conneely and Nellie Moloney were remembered, as was Fr Ned.
Caption: The Class of 1964 – the first students into St Paul’s Secondary School in Oughterard (front – from left) Anne Joyce, Margaret McGauley, Sheila Kelly, Mary A Mc Gauley, Nora Healy, Sally Mc Gauley, Veronica McQuinn, Patti O Connor and Betty Lee, with (back) Mass Celebrate Fr John O’ Halloran, Kieran McGloin, Anthony Darcy, Robert Mc Evilly, Pat O’Connell, Tom Lydon, Festus Jennings, Gerry D'Arcy, and School Principal Linda O’Hara. Photos: Rynes Walker.